Ohio Republicans are anti-democracy addicts
By 
Having failed to pass their initiative to require a supermajority for future initiatives in order to protect their substantively horrible and highly unpopular ban on abortion, the Ohio GOP is mangling the language of the initiative that will appear at the ballot box:
Supporters of the major upcoming Ohio abortion amendment, which would enshrine a right to the procedure in the state’s constitution, thought they were out of the woods.
Earlier this month, they defeated a state Republican-led attempt to raise the threshold for citizen-initiated ballot proposals to 60 percent — which would have included the abortion one in November — in decisive fashion, despite the election being held in sleepy August.
But Republicans’ efforts to rig the game in their favor continues.
On Thursday, the Ohio Ballot Board approved a summary of the amendment text, which will appear on the ballots, that bears little resemblance to the full amendment. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) — a champion of the unsuccessful 60 percent threshold initiative, opponent of the abortion amendment and 2024 U.S. Senate candidate — provided the swing vote to approve the summary.
He also revealed that he had a hand in crafting the new summary, saying that “having worked extensively on drafting this, I do believe it’s fair and accurate.”
Advocates of the amendment had pushed for having its full text appear on the ballot. LaRose shot that down, responding that the full amendment would be available on posters at voting locations, per the Ohio Capital Journal.
“They know that they have to put their thumb — and all their fingers, and their elbows and knees — on their side of the scale to make it as biased as possible in order to have any chance at winning,” Ohio Rep. Elliot Forhan (D), a member of the ballot board, told TPM.
“It goes to the bigger picture of why are we here at all — because we have a democracy in the state of Ohio that is not reflective of the will of the voters,” he added, pointing to the state’s aggressive gerrymandering, along with a lack of campaign finance regulations and transparency measures.
The new summary sprinkles the anti-abortion phrase “unborn child” throughout, substituting it for “fetus.” It erases all mention of giving people the right to make decisions about their miscarriages, fertility treatments and contraception. Critics have called it “confusing” and “misleading.”
In the original version, the crux of the amendment reads: “The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance this individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.”
In the new version, that section becomes: “Prohibit the citizens of the State of Ohio from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means.
The good news is that this Calvinball is highly unlikely to work. But it’s a good demonstration of both the general Republican contempt for democratic decision-making and their recognition of how little chance they have of winning an honest debate on abortion.